The long-in-development massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Warhammer Onlinehas been canceled by parent company Games Workshop. The game had been in development for over four years at Climax Entertainment's Nottingham Studio and had Sega as publisher. Details of exactly why the decision was made are summed up in a statement on the Warhammer Online website by Robin Dews, the overall manager of the Warhammer Online project. He stated:

This has been a difficult and painful decision but it was taken following a full review of the progress of the game, costs to date and future costs of the project. As a result both Games Workshop and Climax Development Limited, the computer games developer, have agreed to terminate the development project.

A movie of the game shown at E3 this year saw the title in a very advanced form, easily on par with (probably better than) Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft in the graphics department. Those of you who know the rich background of Warhammer will realize what a game this could have been, and I am sad to see it not realized. Thanks to gamesindustry.biz for the heads-up.

USER COMMENTS 14 comment(s)

Meh…(11:38am EST Tue Jun 22 2004)I'm not much of a Warhammer fan. Never got into those table-top games. But that kind of sucks to be working on a game for over 4 years and just cancel it… - by 1st Post

perhaps this is the first indication that the lack of new player to the genre are finally limiting the number of online games being released/developed. - by Lived Ip

Warhammer 40K(2:43pm EST Tue Jun 22 2004)I'd like to see Games Workshop put out a Warhammer 40K FPS. Something like Battlefield: 1942 with big teams and vehicles. There is the potential for great gameplay between all the races of 40K. Anyone else have an interest in something like this? Anyone play the 40K mods yet for Half-Life or other FPSs? - by ChewDawg

Fire Warrior(3:16pm EST Tue Jun 22 2004)Actually, they did put together a 40K FPS. Fire Warrior. However, it was more like Halo than BF:1942. - by General Yamamoto

whew(4:57pm EST Tue Jun 22 2004)I bet everyone on their website wanted this and that, and finally the Devs said f*ck this!

Go Devs, i hate you whiney players - by JMURulers

hello!!?(7:57pm EST Tue Jun 22 2004)Open source it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone who wants the game open sourced should make a petition asking them to do this. Even if they dont want it open sourced we could partner source it. Use open source people to code the rest of it and give them and everyone else big discounts when it is released. Remember, comunity drives success with games. Just look at Operation Flash Point! - by AceMan

Petition(5:38am EST Thu Jun 24 2004)There is a Petition running. This is the URL- by EugenusMaximus

Aceman(2:50pm EST Fri Jun 25 2004)Aceman.. What planet are you from? That's proprietary code, and likely using proprietary code that's part of other games they develop. Until you get half a clue please kindly STFU before I shit in your mouth. - by GoatGuy

Real Shame…(9:03pm EST Fri Jun 25 2004)JMURulers – “Go Devs, i hate you whiney players” And you are? get a clue before you post, this had sod all to do with “whiney players”

AceMan – GoatGuy is right, it's propriety and therefore will not be opensourced.

GoatGuy – No need for language like that, it achieves nothing.

Sad to see it cancelled, they'll have reviewed the financial status of the project, i.e. how much it has cost, how much it will cost and what the projected revenue of the project would be, obviously it wasn't all too impressive.

- by ChickenHawk

Poor Development House(9:20pm EST Fri Jun 25 2004)Seems problems stem from Climax software, they were fined for software piracy, rumours point to them stealing money, lieing, cheating and doing a real poor job on WHO.Thanks for wasting so muc time money and support. - by ChickenHawk